Abstract

High resolution powder x-ray diffraction patterns of Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 at selected temperatures were examined to compare structural changes with observed piezoelectric thermal depoling temperatures. The depoling temperatures do not correlate with discrete phase transitiontemperatures, and therefore, a structural transition is not the origin of thermal depoling. Rather, a correlation is made with an increase in volume fraction of material which does not obey the long-range Cc space group. The origin of the thermal depoling behavior may be the loss of long-range ferroelectric order by a decreasing proportion of the Cc phase or the associated percolation of disordered nano-scale platelets.

Received 09 October 2011Accepted 05 November 2011Published online 28 November 2011

Acknowledgments:

E.A. and J.J. acknowledge partial support by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Award No. DMR-0746902. J.J. and J.F. acknowledge partial support from the U.S. Department of the Army under W911NF-09-1-0435. Use of the Advanced Photon Source was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. The authors acknowledge the help of Matthew Suchomel, Katharine Page, Manuel Hinterstein, and John Daniels.